UNIT 3.
ASSESSMENT
OF
PERSONALITY
Ms. Madhureema Neglur
UGC-NET Qualified
WHAT WILL WE
LEARN?
Projective Techniques for children
• Children’s Apperception Test (CAT)
• Sentence Completion Test
• Projective Play
• Drawings as projection
- House-Tree-Person test
- Draw a Person test
3
DRAWING AS
PROJECTION: HTP,
DAP
Activity:
Take three papers and draw the following on separate sheets:
• A House
• A Tree
• A Person (Human)
FIGURE DRAWING METHODS
•
Performance-based measures in which persons being
examined draw pictures of people or objects.
•
Assumption:
• how people approach the task and the way they draw
the figures reflect1. their basic dispositions and concerns
2. their attitudes toward themselves and other
people.
•
Materials:
• A pencil and blank sheets of paper
•
Task:
• People make drawings of various kinds: human
figures on the DAP; a house, a tree, and a person on
the HTP; and a family “doing something” on the KFD.
•
The drawings are usually followed by an inquiry in
which people are asked to tell a story about their
drawings or answer questions about them.
4
5
•
Utilityparticularly helpful in evaluating children and adolescents
- brief and easy to administer
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DAP is the fifth most frequently used personality assessment instrument in
examinations of children and adolescents
HTP ranks sixth
KFD ranks eighth or ninth in frequency of use
NATURE OF FIGURE DRAWING
METHODS
STRUCTURAL DATA:
THEMATIC DATA:
BEHAVIORAL DATA:
Objective features of what
people draw.
Describing what has been drawn
How people approach their task
and interact with the examiner
•
•
•
•
Line quality (heavy or light,
continuous or broken),
the size of the figures (large
or small),
the placement of figures on
the page (middle, top,
bottom, side),
any emphasis on or omission
of basic parts (e.g., person
with disproportionately small
head or big ears)
•
•
•
Human figure as being “sad”
or “not able to do much”
A tree as “not growing as tall
as most trees do,”
Imagery might reflect
depressive phenomena as
dysphoric mood, a sense of
helplessness, and low
self-esteem.
•
•
•
Examinees may draw slowly
or rapidly, carefully or
carelessly, eagerly or
grudgingly.
They may comment on the
nature of the task
Commentary mirrors aspects
of individuals’
problem-solving style and
their test-taking and
interpersonal attitudes
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7
HISTORY OF FIGURE DRAWING
TESTS
•
The formal application of figure drawings in psychological assessment: Florence Goodenough.
• A child psychologist
• completed her doctoral studies at Stanford University in 1924, under the mentorship of Lewis Terman. (Who is
he?)
• Served Professor of Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota for many years.
• Became interested in supplementing the Stanford Binet with a nonverbal measure of intellectual
maturity in young people.
• From her observations of children, she concluded that the amount of accurate detail they include in their drawing
of a human figure can provide such a measure.
•
Developed the Draw-A-Man test, which was published in 1926
8
• Harris (1963) revised the
Draw-A-Man by expanding
Goodenough’s scoring system and
enlarging the standardization sample
for the test.
• he suggested -- children should be
asked to draw not only a man, but
also a woman and a picture of
themselves.
• The Goodenough-Harris method
was published in 1988 by Naglieri,
who provided new normative
guidelines for assessing cognitive
development in young people aged 6
to 17.
DRAW A PERSON TEST (DAP)
•
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In 1949, Karen Machover,
• a senior psychologist at Kings County Psychiatric Hospital in New York,
• published -- first formal method for assessing personality with a figure drawing task that she called the
Draw-A-Person test.
•
Based on her experience in examining the drawings of disturbed adolescents and adults, Machover
recommended using -- DAP with persons of all ages, not just children, and obtaining drawings of both male and
female figures.
•
Structural features of the human figures people draw are likely to reflect their underlying attitudes and concerns
and many of their personality traits.
•
For instance, small figures might indicate low self-esteem or timidity, whereas the drawing of large figures could be a sign
of self-confidence or grandiosity.
•
Suggested include an inquiry procedure in which examinees are asked “to make up a story about this person as
if he were a character in a play or novel”.
•
People who have difficulty generating a spontaneous story about the figures they have drawn, Machover
provided lists of questions that examiners could ask, one list for children and the other one for adult.
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Analysis:
1. Qualitative: Personality description is constructed from the hypothesized meaning of various individual
drawing characteristics.
2. Quantitative approach: given by Koppitz
• Some indicators in Kopptiz’s analysis: how the figures are drawn (e.g., a tiny figure 2 inches high or less;
a slanting figure with its axis tilted by 15 degrees or more), omissions of certain body parts (e.g., no
eyes, mouth, nose, arms, or legs), and several “special features” (e.g., eyes are crossed, legs are
pressed together, arms cling to the sides of the body).
• The total number of these indicators in a drawing is calculated to provide a quantitative index of the likely
extent of a child’s emotional disturbance.
3. Draw-A-Person Screening Procedure for Emotional Disturbance (DAP:SPED)was constructed by Naglieri
and his colleagues.
• Consists of 55 characteristics that appear in the drawings of normal children and adolescents.
Presentation title
4. Tharinger and Stark (1990): proposed a DAP scoring system focused on an examiner’s general
impressions of a drawing, instead of on objective drawing features like the size and placement of figures.
• Called the Integrated System.
• Rating each drawing on a scale from 1 (absence of psychopathology) to 5 (severe psychopathology).
• This overall rating for level of adjustment is based on the prominence of four undesirable drawing
qualities:
(1) inhumanness, as suggested by drawings that strike the examiner as incomplete, grotesque, or monstrous;
(2) lack of agency, as conveyed to the examiner by a sense of powerlessness in the drawing;
(3) lack of well-being, as reflected in negative facial expressions; and
(4) lack of capacity to interact, as inferred from a drawing’s having a hollow, vacant, or stilted quality
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12
HOUSE TREE PERSON TEST
•
The HTP was devised by John Buck (1948) and elaborated by Emmanuel Hammer (1960, 1985) to tap
the concerns, interpersonal attitudes, and self-perceptions of children and adolescents.
•
Can be used with persons of all ages, beginning as early as the preschool years.
•
Buck and Hammer regarded that house, a tree, and a person drawings symbolize important aspects of a
child’s world.
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Drawing
House
Symbolization
- Arouses children’s feelings about their home life
and family relationships.
- A tiny door in relation to the size of the windows
or windows with shutters over them indicate
withdrawal from interpersonal relationships and
reluctance to make contact with the environment
outside the home.
Tree
- feelings about the self in a less anxiety-provoking
manner than a person
- the way the trunk of the tree is drawn could reflect
a person’s basic feeling of inner strength or
weakness; branches drawn with thorns rather than
leaves on them could identify concerns about anger
or hostility
Person
– How people view themselves (a self-image), as
well as how they would like to be (an ideal image)
and what they think about significant other people
in their lives
KINETIC FAMILY DRAWING
•
•
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Machover (1949) suggested -- valuable information could be obtained by asking children to draw
members of their family.
Robert Burns and S. Harvard Kaufman (1970, 1972) developed the KFD
• examinees are asked to draw a picture that includes everyone in their family, including themselves, doing some
activity.
•
The drawing is examined both for structural features of the individual family members (e.g., omission or
exaggeration of body parts) and for relationships among them, including their relative size, the way they are
grouped, and how they are behaving toward each other.
•
E.g., Father missing in the drawing, child placed away from other family members, etc.
•
Drawing characteristics provide clues to the intensity and emotional tone of family members’ attitudes toward
each other and how they are likely to interact.
•
Special note is taken of any barriers between family members that would interfere with their interacting at all,
such as drawing one of them within a circle or a box or at a distance from the others.
Presentation title
•
•
•
•
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Prout and Phillips (1974) proposed a kinetic school drawing (KSD), in which children are asked to
draw a school picture of themselves, their teacher, and a friend or two, with everyone doing something.
Knoff and Prout (1985) later recommended combining the KFD and the KSD and administering both
measures for purposes of analysis and comparison.
This combined approach, is called the Kinetic Drawing System.
It is expected to identify adjustment difficulties both at home and in the school, to clarify causal or
reciprocal relationships between family and school-related issues, and to indicate which people in a
child’s life (e.g., father, sister, teacher) are sources of support or tension.
KSD
KFD
ADMINISTRATION
General instructions for administration
• A4 size sheets of blank paper
• Pencils and erasers
• A writing pad
• No time limit for the client
Administration of DAP
• Place one sheet of paper and a pencil in front of the
person being assessed and say, “I would like you to
draw a picture of a person.”
• No additional guidance should be given.
• If examinees ask for further structure (e.g., “What kind
of person should I draw?” “Can it be a picture of
someone I know?” “With or without clothes on?”),
they should be told, “It’s up to you; you can do it any
way you like.”
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17
•
•
1.
2.
•
•
To examinees expressing concern over their artistic abilities, say, “This is not a test of artistic ability, and it
doesn’t matter how well you can draw; just go ahead and do the best you can.”
When to ask the examinees to draw again?
When they draw a stick figure
When they draw only the face and neck
Once done, ask the examinees to draw another person, producing a new sheet of paper.
Say, “Now I would like you to draw a person of the opposite sex from the one you have just drawn.”
Inquiry
•
Following completion of the two drawings, show the person the first drawing and say, “I’d like you to look at the first
drawing you did and make up a story about the person you’ve drawn.”
•
•
The examinee’s story should be recorded verbatim.
•
After obtaining the stories to these two drawings, the examiner gives the person a third sheet of paper and asks for a
self-portrait: “Now on this page I’d like you to draw a picture of yourself.”
•
Completion of the self-portrait is then followed by asking, “What kind of person are you?”
When the examinee has finished telling a story about the first drawing, the procedure is repeated for the second one:
“Next, I’d like you to look at the second drawing you did and make up a story about this person.”
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Administration of HTP
• Place the first sheet of paper horizontally.
• Say, “I want you to draw as good a picture of a house as you can. You may draw any kind of
house you wish; it’s entirely up to you.”
• After this drawing is finished, the person should be given a second piece of paper placed in a vertical
position,.
• Say, “Next I would like you to draw as good a picture as you can of a tree.”
• For the third drawing, place the paper vertically.
• Say, “And now I want you to draw as good a picture of a person as you can.”
Inquiry
• Show each drawing individually and ask questions from the inquiry sheet.
• Repetitive questions may be avoided
• Along with qualitative guidelines for interpretation, Buck (1948) originally proposed a quantitative
scoring system for the HTP in which points are given for such features as the presence or absence of
various details and the relative size of certain parts of the figures.
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Administration of KFD
• A single sheet of blank paper is given to the examinee.
• Say, “Draw a picture of everyone in your family, including you, doing something. Try to draw
whole people, not cartoons or stick people. Remember, make everyone doing something—some
kind of actions.”
• Note the first picture they draw; e.g., self, mother, etc.
Inquiry
• Inquire about the name and age of each person in the drawing, each person’s relationship to the
examinee, and each person’s noteworthy attributes.
• E.g., “What are three words that describe this person?” “What are this person’s good and bad points?”.
• Ask them to imagine what each person in their drawing is thinking and feeling at the moment.
• Questions can be asked about the family unit, including “What was happening to this family just before
this picture?” “How does this family get along with each other?” “Who do you get along with best?” “Who
do you get along with least?” “What will happen to this family in the future?”
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•
Burns (1982) presented a detailed KFD scoring scheme that emphasized four features of the drawing:
1. the physical characteristics of the figures,
2. the types of actions attributed to each figure,
3. the distances between and positions relative to each other of each pair of family members, and
4. various stylistic features that might indicate emotional disturbance (e.g., drawing all the figures in a
rectangle along the edges of the paper).
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INTERPRETATION
STRUCTURAL VARIABLES
• The line quality of the drawings, the size of the figures and their placement on the page, and any emphasis on or
omission of basic parts; gender differentiation of human figures and role of artistic ability.
• Limit inferences to what test signs might mean, while refraining from conviction about what they must mean.
Line quality
• Gaps in the lines in the figures: Examinees may be worried about things going badly in their lives or the world
around them; they may be fearful of losing their mind or having their body deteriorate (“I feel like I’m falling
apart”)
• Heavy lines: A person who is assertive, bold, forceful, self-confident, and perhaps quick to anger
• Light lines: reflect passivity, timidity, fearfulness, self-derogation, and an aversion to expressing anger.
• LaRoque and Obrzut (2006) administered the DAP to a group of fifty 6- to 11-year old children and measured the
pencil pressure with which they drew.
• Children with relatively high state anxiety, as indicated by their scores on the State Trait Anxiety Inventory for
Children, used significantly less pencil pressure.
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Placement of figures
• Machover originally suggested that placement of human figure drawings “corresponds to where the person places
himself in the environment”.
• People who place their figures on the left side of the page being “self-oriented” and those who place their figures
on the right side being “environment-oriented”: provided no rationale for it.
• E.g., a girl draws all other members of family together, but draws self away in a corner: perhaps feels alone.
Size of Figures
• Handler (1996): Whether drawn by a child or an adult, a family depiction can represent the person’s family as it
actually is, or as the person believes it to be, or as the person wishes it were.
• E.g., a child draws a picture of a large, powerful looking father . This drawing could reflect the child’s image of his
father as strong and important in the family.
Emphasis on Parts
• Emphasis on the ears and eyes in a drawing could reflect a person’s felt urgency to be an attentive listener and alert
observer.
• In young children concerned with their physical appearance, preoccupation with what they perceive as unattractive
features could contribute to unusual treatment of these body parts in their drawings.
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Omission of Parts
• The omission or concealment of hands: concerns about being helpless to take constructive action; or guilt about
having behaved badly in some way,.
• In children: “having dirty hands” or “being caught with your hands in the cookie jar”; or fears of losing control and
engaging in regrettable acts of some kind; or anxiety about close physical contact with others and an aversion to
touching or being touched by people. E.g., child sexual abuse.
• Some people avoid drawing hands because they are harder to draw than most other body parts: enquire during the
inquiry phase.
Gender Differentiation
• Some drawings show less differentiation in gender than others: can’t differentiate bw male and female drawings.
• Limited artistry is usually reflected in unelaborated drawings that contain only the essential characteristics of what
is bring drawn.
• Poor artists depict gender differences as clearly and thoroughly in their drawings as do skilled artists in their more
elaborate drawings. (e.g., man with a beard, woman wearing high-heeled shoes).
• Drawings that contain no clues of any kind to the gender of human figures usually suggest some concern or
uncertainty on the part of examinees about their gender identity.
• Drawings that contain no clues of any kind to the gender of human
figures usually suggest some concern or uncertainty on the part of
examinees about their gender identity.
• Soll et al. studied transgender youth and their families seeking
healthcare at the Gender Identity Program.
• Aimed to explore the psychological evaluation of youngsters
diagnosed with gender incongruence, relating the HTP projective
drawing, parental styles and gender trajectories.
• Parenting styles affected socialization, not gender dysphoria
• Coherence is introduced in the person’s perception of his or her
expressed gender as he/she becomes more comfortable in
expressing his/her gender identity.
• Stages of gender trajectory: Confusion and increasing sense of
gender difference, Finding an explanation and a label: exploring
identity, Deciding what to do and when: exploring options,
Embracing gender identity, Identity consolidation and invisibility
• Only those who were in the first stage, confusion and an increasing
sense of gender difference, drew the figure according to the sex
assigned at birth.
• Projective tests like HTP can detect aspects of the dynamics and
personality in children with gender identity concerns.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6861324/
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Drawing made by a young person assigned female at birth
and whose gender identity is male. The stage of his gender
trajectory was embracing gender identity.
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Artistic Ability
• Examiners should generally avoid inferring personality characteristics from drawing features that could be
attributed to a person’s being a poor artist.
• Unlikely to account for gross distortions of reality in figure drawings.
• Handler (1996): distorted body imagery and impaired reality sense frequently associated with severe
psychopathology commonly diminish a disturbed person’s capacity to represent the body accurately in figure
drawing.
• Limited artistry is seldom a source of error in figure drawing interpretation, because it is usually not difficult to
distinguish drawing characteristics that represent poor psychological differentiation from characteristics that are
attributable to limited artistic ability.
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THEMATIC VARIABLES
Figure Description
• Examinees’ attribution to a self-portrait suggests similar perceptions by examinees of themselves or how they
would like to be.
• Characterizations of the figures in a family drawing often reveal how young people view their parents and siblings,
the roles they ascribe to family members, and how they experience their home life.
Affective Tone
• The affective tone ascribed to human figure drawings usually provides clues to a person’s emotional state or how
the person perceives other people as feeling.
• Overly positive affects like “really very happy person” indicate denial, repression.
Story Plot
• The plot elements of stories and responses to questions about figure drawings may provide clues to a person’s
expectations in life, the person’s aspirations and anticipated obstacles to realizing those aspirations, and the coping
style the person brings to bear to get his or her needs met.
• Plot elements in KFD stories are likely to contain numerous clues to how people view their family life. Family
members may be described as engaging in a shared activity (“They’re watching their favorite TV program”)
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Manner of Expression
• The manner in which people express themselves in telling stories or answering questions about figures provides
information about the integrity of their cognitive functioning, with respect to whether they can think clearly, reason
logically, and perceive people and situations realistically.
• “This woman looks real angry, so her hair will probably fall out”
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BEHAVIORAL VARIABLES
Commitment
• Persons who perform diligently on figure drawing tests are likely to approach other tasks in their lives with care
and investment
• Those who devote little effort or concern to their drawings often tend to deal with other tasks in a similarly
uninvolved and superficial manner.
• Those who work unevenly, slowing down at times or perhaps stopping entirely and looking off into space, may be
having difficulty sustaining their attention.
Comments
• Attitudes toward themselves and toward other people are sometimes reflected in comments people make while
drawing their figures.
• Self-critical comments like “I’m afraid I’m doing a poor job”
• Comments made during the figure drawing: A person who repeatedly requests structure (e.g., “Should I draw a
man or a woman?” “How much time do I have?”) may be a passive-dependent individual who is excessively
concerned about complying with the expectations of other people.
• Examinees who grumble, “This doesn’t make much sense to me” demonstrate resistance to the examination
process; they are also displaying a provocative and depreciatory interpersonal style.
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APPLICATIONS FOR CHILDREN
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Can be used with persons of all ages, beginning as early as age 3 years.
Often helpful in evaluating people who are anxious about being examined, have limited language skills, or are
reluctant to talk.
Young people in particular may find it easier to express their thoughts and feelings in drawings rather than in
words, and drawing pictures tends to be a more familiar and less threatening task for children than most of what
they are asked to do in a psychological examination.
Abused children as a group do show more indications of emotional distress in their figure drawings than
non-abused.
For example, drawings of naked figures with unusually emphasized genitals warrant concern that a child may have
been exposed to excessive sexual stimulation.
Reports of work with abused children indicate that making and talking about drawings can help them recall past
events more clearly than while being interviewed, thereby facilitating their evaluation and treatment.
Survey data indicate that forensic psychologists include the HTP and KFD in their test battery when they assess
young people whose separated or have divorced parents.
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REPORT WRITING
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Demographic details: Name (Initials), Age, Sex, location, date
Observations during testing: Behavioral variables, comments, time taken (approx.), test taking attitude, erasures,
etc.
Interpretation of House: Structural variables (placement, size, etc.), Details (doors, window, environment),
Thematic variables (support with enquiry)
Interpretation of Tree: Nature of tree (apple, mango, if mentioned), Structural variables, Individual details (foliage,
branches, roots), Thematic variables
Interpretation of Person: Description of the person drawn (Enquiry), Structural variables, Individual details (Eyes,
omissions, clothing, accessories), Thematic variables.
Conclusion: Highlight main inferences that are in line with the case history and other tests.
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SACKS SENTENCE
COMPLETION TEST
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COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING
SENTENCES
•
Today, I feel _______________.
•
My ambition in life ___________.
•
I don’t like people who ______________.
•
When I was a child ____________.
•
If I can’t get what I want ________________.
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NATURE OF SCT
•
•
consist of words or phrases -- people -- asked to complete sentences
How indi go about this task reflects –
• kind of person they are
• often provide indirect clues to their underlying attitudes, affects, and concerns.
•
Sentences are selected to explore significant areas of one’s life or their attitudes.
examine specific traits like egocentricity, underachievement, moral attitudes, marital
satisfaction, managerial motivation, depression, etc.
•
Data obtained can be divided into: Structural, thematic, and behavioural variables.
•
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STRUCTURAL DATA:
•
•
Objective response
characteristics as the
reaction times to
individual items, the total
time required to complete
the test, the length of the
responses, and the
frequency of personal
pronouns in the
responses
Little attention has been
paid to the interpretive
significance of structural
features of sentence
completion tests.
THEMATIC DATA:
•
•
The content of individuals’
associations to the item
stems provides a rich array
of clues to their underlying
feelings, attitudes, and
concerns.
In addition to eliciting
general information,
sentence completion stems
can evoke persons’
attitudes toward specific
individuals, objects, etc.
BEHAVIORAL DATA:
•
•
The manner in which
people work on the
sentence completion task
and how they interact with
the examiner.
More commonly
administered in written
form than orally.
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Famous SCTs1.
Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT)
•
Measures ego development
2.
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
•
Assesses personality traits
3.
Miner Sentence Completion Test
•
Measures managerial motivation
4.
NIMHANS Sentence Completion test for Children
•
•
is a standardized semi projective test for children and adolescents in the Indian setting.
perceptions, attitude and comprehensive understanding of the child‟s adjustment
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HISTORY OF SCT
•
First appeared in the context of assessing intelligence. (Who would have thought!?)
•
Herman Ebbinghaus
• 1897
• was interested in how intellectual capacity and reasoning ability develop in young people.
• devised what appears to have been the earliest sentence completion task:
• was adapted by Binet and Simon for their test of intelligence.
• Found the method – useful
• Included sentence stems as one of the tests in the test battery
•
A wide variety of sentence completion tests continue to be used in assessing achievement, intelligence,
and language skills in young people.
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•
Some – primarily thought – as a techniques to assess personality.
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung:
• popularized -- notion that much could be learned about the inner life of people by eliciting their
associations with various words.
• word association test may also have been a precursor to modern sentence completion tests
• “Say the first word that comes into your mind,” the person would be instructed,
• alternative hypotheses could then be generated concerning the possible meaning of associations.
• “MOTHER—good,” “FATHER—scary,” and “WORK—proud.”
•
•
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•
Grace Kent and Aaron Rosanoff
• constructed Free Association Test consisting of 100 ordinary, everyday words like “table,” “dark,” “music,”
“sickness,” and “man.”
•
Rapaport et al.
• included words with aggressive or sexual content (e.g., “fight,” “gun,” “penis,” “vagina,” “masturbation,”
“intercourse”).
• Emphasized on the interpretive significance of structural features of a word association protocol1. reaction times
2. tendencies to use synonyms (“STREET—road”) or antonyms (“GOOD—bad”)
3. preference for single word or multiword associations (“FOOD- potato”) (“GIRL-potato”)
4. strange ways of responding as repeating stimulus words (e.g., “MOUTH—mouth”)
5. giving nonsensical clang associations to them (“BEEF—weef”)
•
However, professional assessors concluded that single-word responses to one-word stimuli do not fully tap the
potential of an association method to identify an individual’s personality characteristics.
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•
Three persons notable for their early work in developing sentence completion formats for assessing
personality.
• Arthur Payne:
• constructed -- first formal list of sentence completion items
• designed for use in vocational counseling as a source of information about career-related personal traits.
•
Alexander Tendler:
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•
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interested primarily in emotionality
compiled a 20-item list of sentence stems
each beginning with a first-person pronoun
intended to sample an affective state (e.g., “I LOVE ”; “I GET ANGRY WHEN ”).
Amanda Rohde:
•
•
•
developed the sentence completion method into an instrument for general personality assessment.
•
The expressed purpose of the instrument was to “reveal latent needs, sentiments, feelings, and attitudes which subjects would be
Published in 1940,
the Rohde Sentence Completion Test was the first carefully constructed and validated measure, and its items covered a broad range of
personal issues and experiences.
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SACKS SENTENCE COMPLETION
TEST
•
Developed by Joseph Sacks and Sidney Levy at the New York Veterans Administration Mental
Hygiene Service in 1950.
consists of 60 item stems,
• most -- first-person pronoun (I, me, my)
• to elicit information about
• a person’s family relations,
• interpersonal relations,
• sexual perspectives,
• self-attitudes.
•
•
Measures four areas of adjustment: Family, Sex, Interpersonal relations, Self concept; each includes
specific set of attitudes.
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SACKS SENTENCE COMPLETION
TEST
Area
Attitude
Family
Mother, Father, Family unit
e.g. My family treats me…
Sex
Marriage, heterosexual relations, attitude towards women
e.g. If I had sexual relations…
Interpersonal relations
Friends, acquaintances, colleagues, superiors, juniors
e.g. When I see my boss coming…
Self concept
Feelings associated with one’s abilities, past, future
e.g. Some day I…
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Test Construction and Standardization
• Twenty clinical psychologists were asked to submit 3 items each.
• To these items, some items were added based on literature review; a total of 280 items were formed.
• Psychologists then selected four items most suitable for each category and related attitudes. (Family, Sex,
Interpersonal relations, Self concept)
• Validated against ROR and TAT
• Moderate scorer reliability (psychologists and psychiatrists)
Administration
• Can be used with adults; administered individually or in groups
• Examinees asked to read the instructions and ask queries if any.
• Note the beginning and the finishing time.
• Conduct an inquiry if possible, focusing on significant or cryptic responses.
E.g., “I think that most mothers leave their kids in the park”
• Oral administration can act as an abreaction, helping examinees to vent while discussing the items.
• Additionally, helps in recording their physiological changes for specific items.
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Interpretation and scoring
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Rating sheet with attitudes and items under that attitude has been provided. (pg. 379)
There are a total of 15 attitudes.
Every attitude has 4 items under it.
Responses to the four items should be considered to provide an interpretative summary of that attitude.
Interpretative summary: Clinician’s impression of the examinee’s attitude towards Mother, Father, self, etc.
Steps to score and interpret:
1.
2.
3.
4.
4.
5.
Three ratings available: 0,1,2, X
Don’t rate individual items, but rate the attitude as a whole (pg. 383).
Why? Authors believe rating a constellation of responses provides a comprehensive view of the disturbance.
How will you decide which rating to give?
Looking closely at the items and the responses
Reaction time, gestures, sighs, facial expressions also help in determining disturbances.
Examples are given at pg. 383
Provide an interpretative summary for each attitude in your own words.
Finally provide a General summary (pg. 397)
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Interpretation and scoring
• In each area, a score of 4 or more indicates disturbance in that area.
Mother: 2
Family
Father: 2
Family unit:
1
5
Report writing
1.
Demographic details
2.
Test taking behavior and rapport
3.
Significant scores and disturbances in certain areas
4.
Elaborate on the disturbances, paragraph-wise: corroborate
findings with other tests and case history, use exact
response terms to explain.
5.
Summary of the scores and disturbances.
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SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST FOR CHILDREN
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•
•
•
By Irvin Floyd in the year 1972
School going children
35 item stems to be completed by children
Items divided into 6 areas as follows
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Self concept
Parental attitude
Peer attitude
Need for achievement
Learning attitude
Body image
•
Each item to be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 (highly negative attitude to highly
positive attitude)
•
A score of 15 or less in any area indicates causes for concern
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PROJECTIVE PLAY
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WHAT IS PROJECTIVE PLAY?
• A diagnostic method in which dolls and other toys are used by children to express their feelings.
• Helpful in diagnosing mental disturbances.
Origin
• Employed usually in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches.
• Projecting parts of the self onto objects or expressive arts materials provides a safe psychological space \to ‘draw
from within’ one’s internal thoughts and feelings.
Nature
• Jennings (2014): ‘play beyond the body’.
• Projective play is often more controlled and ordered in style and builds on the sensory and emotional exploration.
• Projection can be described as building, making, creating and narrating.
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WHY PLAY?
•
•
•
•
(Think about all the things you learnt for the first time while playing)
Examples of play resources: construction toys and materials, doll house, miniature figurines, unstructured objects
for scene setting, building and creating, a range of art/craft materials, playdough and clay with sculpting tools and
sand and water play resources.
Play permits self- discovery within safe and developmentally adaptable parameters.
Winnicott (1971): it is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative
and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.
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ASSESSING AFFECT IN
CHILDREN’S PLAY
The Affect in Play Scale (APS)
• Developed by Russ: a standardized play task that measures affective expression in children’s pretend play.
• Consists of a standardized play task and a criterion-based rating scale.
• Appropriate for children from 6 to 10 years of age.
• The play task consists of two human puppets, one boy and one girl, and three small blocks that are laid out on a
table.
• The puppets have neutral facial expressions. The blocks are brightly colored and of different shapes.
• The task is administered individually to the child and the play is videotaped.
• The instructions for the task are: I’m here to learn about how children play. I have here two puppets and
would like you to play with them any way you like for five minutes. For example, you can have the puppets
do something together. I also have some blocks that you can use. Be sure to have the puppets talk out loud.
The video camera will be on so that I can remember what you say and do. I’ll tell you when to stop
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The APS Rating Scale
• What is measured: affective expression, emotion-laden content and cognitive dimensions of the play, such as
quality of fantasy and imagination.
• How: Three major scores1. Total frequency of units of affective expression: A unit is defined as one scorable expression by an individual
puppet. A unit can be the expression of an affect state, an affect theme, or a combination of the two. An example of
an affect theme would be “Here is a bomb that is going to explode.” The expression can be verbal (“I hate you”) or
nonverbal (one puppet punching the other). The frequency of affect score is the total number of units of affect
expressed in the 5-minute period.
2. Variety of affect categories: There are 11 possible affective categories ranging from Happiness/Pleasure;
Anxiety/Fear; Sadness/Hurt; Frustration/Disappointment to Nurturance/Affection; Aggression.
3. Mean intensity of affective expression: This rating measures the intensity of the feeling state or content theme.
4. Quality of fantasy and imagination is also scored
5. Additionally Organization, Elaboration, Imagination, and comfort in play is also scored.
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Theoretical perspective
• Affect-states: Actual affective experiencing and expression of feeling states and emotions.
• Affect-laden thoughts: Expression of affect themes and content. Primary process content is a subtype of affect
laden thoughts. Emotion may or may not accompany the content.
• Cognitive integration of affective material: The integration and modulation of affect into the fantasy
Applications
• Can be used cross-culturally with diverse backgrounds
• Can be used with children with speech difficulties and intellectual deficits.
• Can assist play therapy.
Watch Sandra Russ elaborate on Affect in Play scale here: https://youtu.be/n5sb7fHYFww
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THANK YOU!